


Firestarter

by ifonlynotnever



Series: in•organ•ic [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Fantasy, Gen, Hearts, Magic, Pseudo-Murder?, Suicide, Vague, Weird/Strange/Bizarre, what even is this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifonlynotnever/pseuds/ifonlynotnever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are the last," his Mum tells him, just as she does every night. "You are the last."</p><p>(Jim's backstory for this 'verse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little 221B set in the in•organ•ic 'verse. Set chronologically before [Ash, Gold, Quartz](http://archiveofourown.org/works/327895).
> 
>  **Warnings:** Non-graphic mentions of abuse, suicide, and... what I'm choosing to call pseudo-murder/matricide? If you have a better term for it, please tell me.

"You are the last," his Mum tells him, just as she does every night. Whispers it in Jimmy's ear, soft and loving and furtive as they clutch at one another beneath the covers of his bed. Hiding. Waiting. Wondering when _he_ will come. "You are the last."

—

He learns later (later, after _she_ 's dead) what that means. What it means that he is the last of his kind. The last of a dying breed. Myth and legend made real. Fairytales come to life.

_Firestarter._

Early on Jim decides that even if he must be the last, it doesn't mean he must be the weakest. He will take the power inside himself—the power that others stifled, banked, smothered—and he will make it his own. He will stoke it higher and higher and ever, ever higher.

Perhaps it will consume him.

Perhaps that is the point.

—

Of all the lies they tell about firestarters, perhaps the one Jim likes best is the lie that they exist solely to burn the wickedness out of the hearts of naughty children and make them feel first-hand the suffering of the ones they hurt.

It is a lie that makes him laugh until he cries. Wickedness? No. Wickedness, he thinks, would make a poor fuel.

But hearts—oh, hearts are his favourite thing to burn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... Yeah. Didn't mean to write more. But it just kind of came about, and I feel weird about posting it as a separate thing so. jaklsd.
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** Suicide, pseudo-murder (I... think?). I don't even know.

The first human heart he burns is _hers_. His mother's. It is the only thing he can do for her when she asks him to make it stop, make the hurt go away, make her stop _feeling_.

So he does.

They have never done it with hearts before, or any kind of flesh, though he's wanted to try it for a long, long time.

(Not on her, though. Never on her.)

But she teaches him, just as she always has. She takes his small hand in hers and places it over her breast, holding it there and looking into his eyes.

"Can you feel the beating?" she asks.

He can.

"Follow it. Follow the beating to where my heart is."

He does.

"Have you found it?"

He has.

"Good," she sighs. It's a pretty sound. Different from usual.

"Will you live?" he asks. He doesn't want her to die. She'll be leaving him either way, but he'd prefer it if it weren't... completely. He'd be happy even with just her empty shell.

But she whispers, "I hope not," and smiles, and it makes him angry. So, so _angry_.

He burns her.

  


—  


She dies.

  


—  


Not from the burning, no. Afterwards. The heartless—they are unstable. Unemotional. It surprises no one, least of all her son, when she walks right off a bridge.


End file.
